


sugar cookies

by jodaired



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Coffee Shop, F/M, M/M, Mafia AU, Minor Injuries, gender neutral reader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:54:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24531880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jodaired/pseuds/jodaired
Summary: you’re a pre-med student working the closing shift at your part-time job when you find an injured gangster by the dumpster.cross-posted on tumblr.
Relationships: Ushijima Wakatoshi & Reader, Ushijima Wakatoshi/Reader, Ushijima Wakatoshi/You
Comments: 2
Kudos: 140





	sugar cookies

**Author's Note:**

> Big, big thank you to Lee, Ana, and the rest of the cheese cult for inspiring me to write.

While your parents give you what they can, it’s barely enough to pay tuition and living expenses while you’re off at school. Picking up a part-time job gives you some pocket money and something to take your mind off of studying.

The coffee shop you work part-time at is a tiny, yet bustling spot in the heart of the financial district. As one of the few university students that work there, you get the privilege of working morning shifts. This means, you plaster on your brightest smile at six in the morning to laugh kindly with business men who deign to pick up their own coffee and grouchy secretaries who are dissatisfied with getting their boss’.

On instinct, you smile brightly at the chime of the door.

“Good morning, Washijo-san! How are you?” 

The regular at your store was grumpy old thing with a stubby nose and bushy brows. His suits were befitting of his location: impeccably pressed. While he appeared to be perpetually unhappy, you knew that was a lie. You swore to all your coworkers that there was a heart underneath his gruffness. 

The elderly gentleman gives an endearing huff, ignoring your question. “Small black.” 

You don’t let it deter you as you beam at the man. “Anything else, Washijo-san?”

“Ushijima—” the man grunts — “do you want anything?”

The man on his left silently shakes his head. 

“That’s all.”

“Coming right up!” You chime.

Washijo hands you crisp bill — significantly more than his total. When you hand him the change, as he does with every visit, he promptly dumps it into the tip jar. Your heart jumps in guilt but, as a struggling student, you swallow your tongue.

“Thank you!”

Washijo waves you off flippantly as he takes a seat. In his stead, the young man waits stoically by the counter. As you ready the man's coffee, you watch his companion from the corner of your eye.

While you had many questions for the old man, the most interesting mystery of all was the string of bodyguards who followed his every whim. While you’d gotten used to anxiously eager Goshiki and his oatmeal chocolate chip cookie, your interest was piqued by latest guard by his side. He was strong jawed with a stern look to him — broad shouldered and serious. 

“Ushijima-kun, right?” 

His eyes are far more intense than you anticipate. Lightning runs up your spine when he raises his head. He nods.

A second is lost on you as you try to compose yourself. “Um… Do you work with Washijo-san?”

“He’s my boss.”

Your heart almost stops. His voice is a deep timber, gravelly from lack of use. His words leave a resounding echo in your ears despite the low volume. 

_…Is this love?_ The dopey grin on your face grows.

“You must work around here then!”

He nods. 

“Very nice!” You place the steaming cup of coffee on the serving counter before wiping your hands on your apron. “It’s a great place to walk around during your lunch break. Before I got a job here, I worked at the hospital around the corner. I could never decide where to get lunch.”

Reaching for the coffee, he asks, “Why did you leave the hospital for a coffee shop?” 

“It was just a summer internship program!” You reply as you begin plating a pair of sugar cookies.  “I’m studying pre-med, actually.”

He gives a hum and you place the cookies in front of him. He frowns.

“We didn’t order those.”

“Don’t worry about it.” It was a feeble attempt to balance out the ridiculous amount the elderly man had supplied to your tip jar over the last year. “You should come by with Washijo-san more often, though! It’s nice to see new faces.”

—

It’s sort of like speaking a curse aloud. You don’t see Washijo, or the young man for a handful of weeks after that. While your tip jar remains healthy, you do miss the grouchy demeanour of the old man.  Shamefully, you can’t say that you don’t hope to see Ushijima, though. While you don’t share the same rapport with him yet, _you would like to._ There was something endearing about his quiet personality. He was like a sleeping volcano. There was _something_ hidden just below the surface. 

Without noticing, you find yourself grinning into the pages of your anatomy textbook. 

After cleaning steadily throughout the night — all you have to do at this point is empty the pastry case and take out the trash. With nothing else to do, of course you spend your free time studying. It’s a boring way to pass the time, but it trickles away quickly. 

The clock uneventfully strikes one and you flip the welcome sign. As you’re looking out of the glass, watching a cat cross the sheet — two men run past the storefront, one taunts their tail with a daunting tune barely muffled through the glass. It sends a shiver up your spine.  Quickly, you lock the door before retreating further into the store.

You definitely prefer morning shifts, but with the younger part-timer out of school for the time being — you had no choice but to pick up the closings for fairness sake. 

A sigh escapes your lips as you lament your tragic life as a university student. You push open the back door with your shoulder, lugging along a large garbage bag in your arms. It’s a struggle with your weak arms, but you manage to heft it into the garbage dump in the back alley. 

As you give yourself a congratulatory pat on the back, you find yourself jumping six feet into the air. 

Tucked behind the dumpster is a man, his long legs barely hidden behind the length of the trash heap. While you’d really like to run back inside, shut off the lights and lock up for the night, your morality wins. 

“Are you okay?” You ask, coming to his side. 

He groans in response. 

“Do you think you can stand?”

He shakes his head. 

You help him into the back of the store and lead him to sit at your makeshift break table. In the light, you can finally see his face.

“Ushijima-kun,” you gasp, kneeling at his side.

You can see two bright spots of poppy-red blossom into the white of his dress shirt. You stiffen your gasp with the sleeve of your sweater before inspecting his wound. The buttons of his shirt come undone with a touch of your nimble fingers. You swallow back a second gasp. Though you saw a hint of his wounds through the poplin fabric, you’re not ready to stare directly at the angry pucker of red skin in his red pectoral. 

“I—” you pull away, patting at your pockets in search of your phone— “I need to call the ambulance. This… This is more than I can handle. _Well_ , actually this is — this is _entirely_ more than I know how to handle—” 

You’re startled out of your panic by the warmth of his touch on your arm. He says nothing to you but shakes his head instead.

“No ambulance,” he appeals. 

Your hands drop to your sides. “Okay. No ambulance.”

Moving to your feet, he tights his grip on your sleeve. His sharp eyes, previously filled with indifference, watch you desperately.

“I’m just going to wash my hands.”

His grip goes lax.

With the first aid kit hung on the wall and your mediocre knowledge of dressing a gunshot wound, you do your best to treat his wounds. You’ve yet to learn how to clean a gunshot wound specifically but you’ve always been good at guessing games. Applying what you know from the pdfs you stole off the online library: you clean, you dress, and you bandage.

When the silence of it all gets unbearable, you croak, “You know. This isn’t what I meant when I told you to come by more often.” 

“Sorry,” he mumbles. 

“It’s okay,” you reply, disinfecting the wound. You offer an apologetic smile when he winces. “I’m just glad to see you, really. I haven’t seen you in weeks.” A weak laugh escapes you. “I mean, you _and_ Washijo-san, obviously. He’s one of my favourite regulars. I was worried.” You can’t seem to look away from the gunshot. “I mean… I guess it was for good reason.” 

He says nothing, lulling the two of you into another bout of silence. You mask your disappointment as you move away from him — reaching for a dressing pack in the first aid kit. As steadily as you can, you apply the dressing to his chest wound. 

Perhaps you’re distracted by his chiselled pectorals, or maybe you’re exhausted past the capabilities that your brain can handle at one in the morning — regardless, your startled gaze meets his intensity when he grunts.

For an infinity confined within the limits of second, you can feel his heart beat within his chest.

“This is an occupational hazard.”

They’ve said that lightning doesn’t strike twice, but here you are: silent in an aftershock. 

“…This?”

He stares at you for a hard moment. “This.”

“Getting… Shot?”

“Yes. Similar to how an athlete expect injuries, I too expect injuries.”

Your lips press into a frown. “I don’t know many people who would take a bullet for their job.” 

“As I mentioned, this is an—”

“Occupational hazard,” you cut him off with a roll of your eyes. “ _I heard_. I guess this means that finding men hiding in my trash is also an occupational hazard.” As you fix him with your sternest glare, you simultaneously smooth down his dressing. “Should I expect more injured men outside my store at one in the morning? Because you should know that I rarely close and I should really pass along the message.”

He has the sense to look embarassed but it doesn’t look quite right on him. 

“I couldn’t go anywhere else.” Then, quietly, he adds, “I hoped it would be you.”

A list of places come to mind, but rather than chew him out, you fix him with a stare. You stare at him until you’re sure he can see the questions overflowing from your ears. One glaring question stands above the rest, but for some reason, you can’t manage to ask it. Instead, you stand, putting a comfortable distance between you two.

“Do you want a cookie? I forgot to empty the pastry display.”

—

Other than a handful of students huddled on the couch in the back corner of the café, the store is virtually empty in the last fifteen minutes to close. After that encounter with Ushijima ( who a couple weeks later grunted and said, _“Call me Wakatoshi.”_ ), you began to pick up closing shifts more often. While Washijo lamented this fact to your manager, you decided you liked having Wakatoshi walk you home after your shift more than the tips. 

As you doodle absently in the margin of your textbook, the café door slams open. Wakatoshi isn’t usually so flamboyant, but you’ve learned to control yourself when startled.You look at the clock pointedly, then at your boyfriend. 

“Toshi,” you whine, “you’re — _oh_. What happened to Tendou?”

The redheaded man hangs limply, upright only thanks to your boyfriend’s support.

“I — _believe it or not_ — got shot!” In spite of his pale face, he’s scarily gleeful.

“Crazy,” you cheer weakly, coming to support him on his other side. “Why don’t you tell me more about it in the back.”

On noticing the injured redhead, the group hightail it out of the store — leaving behind their dirtied plates and mugs. 

“Have a good night!” You call after them.

Tendou rolls his head back. “Have a good night~!”

Over his head, you give your boyfriend a pointed look. He meets your look. While his eyes still smoulder, you can see the tiredness in his movements as well. You give a sigh. 

Biting the bullet, you decide not to chew out your boyfriend for letting his injured friend bleed all over you freshly swept store. Instead, you apply the same care to Tendou as you do when you do when treating your boyfriend while simultaneously sending said boyfriend to mop up the blood.

“You’re better at this than Shirabu,” he says with a contented sigh, munching on the sugar cookie you had set aside for Wakatoshi.

You smile at the compliment. “Thanks, Tendou. Really, I’m still in school though.”

“Don’t diminish your talents,” Wakatoshi proclaims, pausing in his mopping.

You give him a glare. Without a word, he continues. 

“Rest here for a bit, okay, Tendou? I just need to finish closing up the store and then we’ll figure out what to do after.”

Tendou’s already humming under his breath as you walk back to the front. Wakatoshi, apparently finished sweeping, is behind the counter taking out the trash. He stops when he sees you, coming to your side. Immediately you pout.

“I’m sorry for bringing Tendou.” When your pout doesn’t go away, he takes matters into his own hands and draws you carefully into his chest. “I know it was supposed to be just us, but—”

You sigh. “It’s okay, Toshi. I’m not mad.”

While you’re still encircled in his arms, he pulls away to peer at your face. “You aren’t? You look mad. And, you’re not saying anything. That is an indicator that you’re not okay—”

“I’m _upset_ because that could’ve been _you_ , Toshi. You’re still healing from your last injury. You’re in absolutely no shape to be getting in more fights!”

You smack him lightly on his chest but he quickly catches your wrist. You try again and he catches you, again. You glare at him. He stares at you. You wind back your leg. Before you get a chance to kick him, he wraps his arms around you and hoists you off the ground.

You gasp, wrapping your arms around his neck. “Put me down!”

Rather than listening to you, he hugs you tighter. 

“Babe!” 

Now, he’s walking.

“Toshi!”

When he releases you, the both of you fall into the worn pleather of the back corner couch. The fall is sudden enough to surprise you out of your anger. Still, encaged in his arms, you look up at your boyfriend moodily. 

“I’m sorry, baby,” he murmurs. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

The gentleness of his words relax you and all you can hear is his heartbeat. 

“I know it’s an occupational hazard, but I can’t help but worry about you.”

His hand moves from your waist to gently pat your hair. “Thank you for caring about me.”

You melt in his arms — there’s something beautiful his softness. 

“Toshi?” You murmur, squirming in his arms to look into his eyes. “You know I love you, right?”   


He gives you a gentle smile, leaning in to give you a soft peck on the lips. “I love you too, baby.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Drop a kudos if you liked it <3


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